It's like a sickness.
It weevils its way inside your chest and at first, you don't notice. But then when it sinks its claws into you, you can't breathe. You can't do anything but let it happen.
It's like dying.
Second after second of agony ticks by and you think this is it—this is the end. But it isn't. It leaves you very much alive, in the barest sense of the word.
And trust me, I know what it feels like to die.
Dad told us not to get a Jeep unless it was four-wheel drive, but it was our first car—our dream car—and he couldn't deny our sixteen-year-old pleas.
The four-wheel drive would have been handy that night as Dad, Kamryn and I veered off the road and into River Gorge, the ice no match for the vehicle's near-bald tires. We plunged down the rocky slope until we stopped sliding, the entire driver's side pulverized by the gorge's boulders. I remember hanging there in the passenger seat, ribs crushing my lungs, and when I finally found breath, the air was filled with the acrid stench of burning oil. Six years later, I still can't stomach the smell. Can't even get my oil changed without having a panic attack. Dad would have had to change it if he were still here.
But he is long gone, along with my twin, and the grief ripping my ribs from my chest takes my breath away even now as I pull into my hometown of Reading, Wyoming, "Where There's Magic in the Mountains."
I roll my eyes at the welcome sign. There's no magic in this town. Just painful memories. I tell myself the twist in my gut doesn't matter, that the rage burning my throat like acid is all in my head. After all, I'm only here for Mom.
It's been four years since I left, which seems like such a long time and also no time at all, especially as I cruise down the street my sister and I grew up on. Nothing has changed, and yet it's different. Mrs. Dunn changed the flowers in her window box–colorful snapdragons waving in the winter breeze. The Waltons got another dog, a scruffy little mutt chasing their youngest son on his bike. I wave to him as I pass, realizing he's no longer the pudgy child I remember.
Blinking back the tears suddenly springing to my eyes, I turn into Mom's driveway and shove down the sickness. I left this place for a reason.
"Hello?" I call, stepping through the open front door. The scent that hits my nose is so familiar, it instantly brings fond memories to the front of my mind. Warm recollections that are far in the past. After today, I may never smell it again.
"Hey hun! Help me with this box, would you?" My mom's best friend Janine calls from the living room. I grab one end of the awkwardly large box and help haul it to her SUV.
"There's the boxes in the kitchen left, and then all we have to do is drive to the apartment and unpack." She dusts off her hands before wrapping me in a hug. "Missed you, punk."
Her embrace is crushing as it always is, and I count the seconds until I can breathe again. "Missed you too," I squeeze out.
Stepping back, she beams at me. "How was the drive? When do your things arrive?"
I follow her into the kitchen to haul more boxes out. "The wind was a problem coming up the mountain, but other than that it was fine."
I watch her eyebrow lift over a cardboard box and hold my breath, but she doesn't push it. I still haven't decided if I'm staying so I haven't scheduled the moving company to come out yet, and as much as the thought makes me ill, I don't want to tell Janine and Mom only to have their hopes trampled. "Update on Mom today?"
Janine closes the trunk after the last box is loaded and tosses me the keys. "Same as yesterday. Since they put the plate in her shoulder, she seems to be in a lot of pain, but you know your mom. She says it's manageable." She makes a face like she sucked on a lemon. "That woman could have broken both her arms and legs and still try to walk to the mailbox. Between you and me, she's going to have a hard time recovering mentally if she's dependent on anyone but herself."
Mom definitely would try and move around on her own after an injury like that, and Janine was right to call me. She can't sit with Mom all day because of her job, but since I've graduated from college–a whole semester early–I have all the time in the world. Yay me.
I walk through the house one last time, making sure there's no forgotten boxes to bring down. I check each room and the closets, ensuring nothing tangible has been left behind. In the hallway, I hesitate before the open door of my childhood bedroom. I haven't been back since I moved out, leaving all of Kamryn's things on her side of the room. All but one. I finger the necklaces at my collarbone. Twin stars for each of us. Inhaling deeply, I step through the threshold.
Somehow, the empty space seems smaller than when it was filled with our furniture, clothes, and stuffed animals. Sixteen years of our lives reduced to bare carpet and a few straggling dust bunnies. Opening the closet, my eyes trace the pencil marks scribbled up and down the back of the door.
Before I know it, my vision blurs and I can hardly breathe. The thought of Kamryn never getting any taller, never growing any older—it squeezes my stomach in an iron fist as I head for the front door, not bothering to look into the rest of the rooms. After locking the door and handing the keys back to Janine, I can finally inhale enough to fill my lungs.
"Would you mind grocery shopping for a few basics while I start unloading at your mom's apartment? I won't have time to go before work and I don't want her to worry about what to cook tonight." Janine fishes cash out of her purse and presses it into my hand. I frown down at the wad of twenties.
"I could get it on my own, you know, and help you unpack," I reply, raising an eyebrow at her. She only winks, stating that it's for the hassle of going in the first place. Neither of us enjoy shopping, never have. But I only hug her goodbye and slip back into my Range Rover, promising to meet her at the apartment later.
When I'm in the middle of the bread aisle, a high-pitched familiar voice calls my name. Turning, I can only see a blur of red before she tackles me in a hug.
"Kamille! I didn't believe my mom when she told me you were back! Look at you," Loren says, pulling back to look at my face. Her smile is cherry bright and entices my lips to mirror hers.
"Word travels fast, I've only been in for like two hours." I take the chance to look her up and down, and am not a bit surprised that she looks older, more mature since last I saw her, and not a freckle out of place. When we played softball together in highschool, we were attached at the hip. But four years away can change a person, and I'm glad to know that Loren and I are picking up where we left off.
"Sorry I didn't message you sooner, I thought I was going to be busy with moving Mom from the hospital to her apartment and all, but Janine insists I let her handle it. At this point, I'm ready to close on the house and become Mom's live-in chef." Indicating the eggs and fruit in my cart, I offer her an exhausted smile.
She grins. "It's fine, you know how much of a gossip my mom is. Half the town probably already knows you're back. Even Mrs. Biltmore was asking about you."
At her words, my stomach drops and I let out a groan. The one family I didn't want to know I was here most definitely knows now. Loren giggles and digs an elbow into my ribs.
"Come on, I'm sure it'll be okay. I heard her son's been busy with his new job. Something to do with the medical field. I doubt you'll even cross paths." She winks. The mischief gleaming in her eyes makes me swallow.
Moving along to a safer topic, I ask about her and her long-time boyfriend Tyler, whom I learn proposed shortly after we graduated high school, but they have yet to get married. For a moment while she talks, I'm pulled by memory to the football field I crossed to receive my diploma, the ghost of my sister beside me. And when I'd walked across that stage to receive my Bachelor's degree in Nutrition just two weeks ago I still felt her absence like a missing limb. I'm beginning to wonder if I'd ever feel whole again.
Sudden silence brings me back to the present, Loren's expression a bit dimmer than before as she peers at me solemnly. "I'll tell Mom you said hello. Let's meet up for dinner tomorrow night or something, 'kay?" Loren kisses my cheek before heading to the checkout line.
As hard as I try to shake the feeling, I can't help but sag under the weight of being back home. The familiarity and mundaneness of simply paying for groceries, riding down the street, or buying a newspaper puts a knife in my side.
This is why I left. This town moved on from the tragedy, but I never could. Reading, Wyoming recovered from the loss to their community, but the gaping hole in my heart never healed. Instead, being back here, seeing the proof of how little really we matter ignites something within me. The world as I knew it went on as if dad and Kamryn's lives hadn't blinked out, and now there was something inside me that wouldn't stop until the whole world was blood. I was devastated. Now I am wrathful.
The only magic left here is the way this town made me want to run fast and far, away from the sickness of grief burrowed deep inside my soul. And if they can live without my twin, I will make them live with my rage.